"Well, I will try," said Stella, and she crossed the room and opened the tiny piano, and began to play a sonata by Schubert. "I cannot play like Lady Lenore," she said, almost to herself, but Lady Lilian heard her. "You play exquisitely," she said. "No, I can't play," repeated Stella, with almost a touch of impatience; then she looked up and saw the Madonna, and on the impulse of the moment began to sing Gounod's "Ave Maria." There is no more exquisite piece of devotional music in the world, and it was Stella's favorite. She had sung it often and often in the dreary school-days, with all her longing heart in her voice; she had sung it in solemn aisled cathedrals, while the incense rose to the vaulted roof; but she had never sung it as she sang it now--now that the strange, indefinable pain was filling her heart with wistful vague longing. Lady Lilian leant forward--her lips parted, her eyes filling with tears--so rapt that she did not notice that the door had opened, and that Lord Leycester stood in the room. When she did see him he held up his hand to silence any word of greeting, and stood with his head lowered, his eyes fixed on Stella's face, upturned, white, and rapt. As he listened, his handsome face grew pale, his dark eyes deepened with intense emotion; he had stood beside the piano down-stairs while Lady Lenore had been singing, with a calm, polite attention; here and at this moment his heart beat and throbbed with an intense longing to bend and kiss the upturned face--with an intense longing to draw the eyes toward his--to silence the exquisite voice--to change its imploring prayer into a song of love. All unconsciously Stella sang on till the end, that last, lingering, exquisite, long-drawn sigh; then she turned and saw him, but she did not move--only turned pale, her eyes fixed on his. And so they looked at each other. With an effort he broke the spell, and moved. But he did not speak to her at once, but to Lilian. "I have brought you something," he said, in a low voice, and he held up the sketch. Lady Lilian uttered a cry of delight. "And it is for me! Oh, Leycester, that is nice! It is beautiful! I know who painted it--it was your uncle, Stella! Oh, yes, I know!" "You are right," said Leycester, then he went toward Stella. "How can I thank you?" he said, in a low voice. "I know now why you would not sing to to us down-stairs! You were quite right. I would not have you sing to a mob in a drawing-room after dinner. What shall I say?--what can I say?" Stella looked up pale and almost breathless beneath the passionate fire that burned in his eyes. "I did not know you were here," she said, at last. "Or you would not have sung. I am glad I came--I cannot say how glad! You will not sing again?" "No, no," she said. "No," he said. "I did not think you would, and yet I would give something to hear you once--only once more." "No," said Stella, and she rose and went back to her seat.